The present disclosure is generally related to computing and information systems, and in particular to systems and methods for analyzing data to provide summaries and previews on space constrained display devices.
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Computer systems have long been used to gather, retrieve, analyze, and display various types of data. In such systems, everything from raw data to refined visual representations of analytical data are output through various types of output devices to be consumed by users. For example, data can be output on display devices, such as computer monitors, touchscreens, projectors, wearable displays, printers, and the like. To make the such devices and their associated computing devices more portable and energy efficient, many manufacturers are producing smaller sized devices. While there are certain advantages in terms of portability and power consumption in making display devices smaller, the reduction in size inherently imposes constraints on the available area in which to display data.
The size limitations of a display device restrict the type and amount of data that can be legibly displayed at any given time. To adapt to the size limitations, various techniques exist for minimizing the amount of display area required while maximizing the effectiveness of the data. For example, some systems analyze raw data to generate analytical data, such as statistical data, filtered data, and the like. The analytical data can then be summarized and displayed in one or more concise and readily consumable summaries or visualizations (e.g., chart, graph, etc.). Such summaries are often useful for giving quick insight into the data, however, to completely understand the information contained in the data, users often need to delve into the details.
The details are often provided as alphanumeric values for various dimensions and measures of the data set in list form. Due to space limitations and the need for a minimum text size for the information to be legible, only segments of such lists may be displayed on the display device at any given time. To view different segments of the list, users may navigate, by what is known in the field as “scrolling” through the list. Scrolling through the list can offer access to details in the data, but such techniques inherently require that some, if not the majority, of the data in the list be hidden off-screen. Accordingly, displays devices, and other user interfaces, that limit the size of the list segment displayed often occlude the details in and nature of (e.g., distribution of the data in the list) the off-screen list data that might help a user better understand the information contained in the list.